18 hour duty days are safe?

[suupah]

"...regarding Part 91, tail end ferry. The interpretation is clear that
Part 91 flying is not subject to 121 Duty Time Rules. Part 91 is not subject to 8 hrs or 16 hour duty day. However, common sense and in the interest of Safety, ******* Air will prohibit any flight activity when duty will exceed 18 hours. Currently ****** Air is working to finalizing a Risk Assessment Tool for all repositioning and ferry flights.
After any tail end Part 91 flying adequate rest must be accomplished prior to next 121 flight duties."

Aviators, is this safe?

 

[relief tube]

nope.....fatigue clause that s--t unless you're wide awake and its to your advantage/company will do a huge favor for you.

 

[COOPERVANE]

I wouldn't even do it if it were advantageous to me.

If it's unsafe it's unsafe

I would be calling fatigued for that $hit. If everyone did it, it would GO AWAY

 

[brokeflyer]

weird...how can you be "off" duty and still doing a repo leg part 91?

So you show your duty off time diffrent than your block in time from the last flight?...

This is bull$hit intrepretation from some dept manager who is trying make himself look good by saving the day with a safety issue.

It dont matter if it's 91,121,135 or whatever part you make up. An air carrier dont have anything called part 91 duty. You can a part 91 LEG but you are duty, 135 or 121.

unsafe..... You can legally accept a part 91 leg at the end of the day if you want to, but the company cant ASSIGN you a part 91 leg that will take you over you duty time. That would not be in compliance with the regulations

 

[joe_pilot]

Ditto what brokeflyer said.

The aircraft might be operated under part 91, but the pilot is subject to part 121 or 135 rest rules. Simple as that.

 

[ACL65PILOT]

We used to do it all of the time in my regional life. It is crap, but it is legal crap.

 

[zasca]

Why do it? Don't your contracts have max duty at 16 or less? Have seen 15.5 and 15hr maxes.

 

[ImbracableCrunk]

At the Pinnacle 3701 hearing, one of the board members was wondering the same thing. Of the course the RAA or the ATA probably had some thugs stop by her place with a case of money in one hand and a pipe in the other.

 

[Afraid to Fly]

Like I said in another thread, I was pissed off about this as well and called my rep today about it. He said that they are on top of it and will be putting out something late tonight or tommorow concerning this.

 

[Nevets]

One of the reasons why ALPA supports H.R. 915. It has this language in it thanks to ALPA:

SEC. 816. DUTY PERIODS AND FLIGHT TIME LIMITATIONS APPLICABLE TO FLIGHT CREWMEMBERS.

Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall initiate a rulemaking proceeding for the following purposes:

(1) To require a flight crewmember who is employed by an air carrier conducting operations under part 121 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, and who accepts an additional assignment for flying under part 91 of such title from the air carrier or from any other air carrier conducting operations under part 121 or 135 of such title, to apply the period of the additional assignment (regardless of whether the assignment is performed by the flight crewmember before or after an assignment to fly under part 121 of such title) toward any limitation applicable to the flight crewmember relating to duty periods or flight times under part 121 of such title.


(2) To require a flight crewmember who is employed by an air carrier conducting operations under part 135 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, and who accepts an additional assignment for flying under part 91 of such title from the air carrier or any other air carrier conducting operations under part 121 or 135 of such title, to apply the period of the additional assignment (regardless of whether the assignment is performed by the flight crewmember before or after an assignment to fly under part 135 of such title) toward any limitation applicable to the flight crewmember relating to duty periods or flight times under part 135 of such title.

Call your Senator and tell them to insert this language into S.1451.

 

[pilotyip]

18 hours is a piece of cake if your duty started at 0700 after a good nights sleep and going until 0100 to get back home. 18 hours is a ball buster if your duty started at 1900 after a being up all day and going until 1300 the next day. What about a four sooze in the FBO during the 18 hours? all these things come into consideration. 18 hours by itself tells nothing.

 

[samballs]

18 hours is a piece of cake if your duty started at 0700 after a good nights sleep and going until 0100 to get back home. 18 hours is a ball buster if your duty started at 1900 after a being up all day and going until 1300 the next day. What about a four sooze in the FBO during the 18 hours? all these things come into consideration. 18 hours by itself tells nothing.

showing your management side 18 hours is not safe.

 

[samballs]

18 hours is a piece of cake if your duty started at 0700 after a good nights sleep and going until 0100 to get back home. 18 hours is a ball buster if your duty started at 1900 after a being up all day and going until 1300 the next day. What about a four sooze in the FBO during the 18 hours? all these things come into consideration. 18 hours by itself tells nothing.

If your duty started at 7 means you were up at 530

 

[suupah]

18 hours is a piece of cake if your duty started at 0700 after a good nights sleep and going until 0100 to get back home. 18 hours is a ball buster if your duty started at 1900 after a being up all day and going until 1300 the next day. What about a four sooze in the FBO during the 18 hours? all these things come into consideration. 18 hours by itself tells nothing.

It really comes down to risk management. You are rolling the dice with an 18 hour duty day. It is completely avoidable with proper use of reserves and sufficient staffing.

 

[pilotyip]

not really

showing your management side 18 hours is not safe.

There is a long line of pilots who will tell you otherwise. Lets see its 2100, I have been on duty 15 hours, I am in MMIO, and I have choice to spend the night in MMIO, with a cab ride through MMIO in the middle of the night, or hop in my airplane and fly home in three hours. Almost everyone would make the decision at that time to go home. However I believe you are waving the safety flag. and no one can ever be against the safety flag. So to say any more when the safety flag is waving is a loosing battle. BTW not to mention that 18 hrs of duty is legal under 121 for a two-man crew with, if a third man rides the jump seat for all but 2 hrs. Rest in the jump seat is such a good thing. Again not mentioning the 16-20 hours days crossing 4-5 time zones? Are we going to ban int'l flying or stop in Iceland and change crews, turn a 2-day trip into a 6-day trip with no additional flying?

 

[pilotyip]

rolling the dice

It really comes down to risk management. You are rolling the dice with an 18 hour duty day. It is completely avoidable with proper use of reserves and sufficient staffing.

You are rolling the dice on a 600 RVR Take Off with the Flight Director deferred; you are rolling the dice when you your approach to a mins airport rolling the dice are something we do in this business all the time. We evaluate the risk, and compensate. My views are not management, there are from my 40 years and 13,000 hours as a flight crewmember. Management does not play a part in this, this is a crew’s response. BTW the anything that adds to the cost of the doing business, reduces the amount avaialbe to pay pilots. What would the vote be, "We are going to hire another 14 pilots to ensure you never fly more than 12 hours a day, but everyone takes a 25% pay cut?"

 

[suupah]

Right, well when you have been awake for 17 hours the scientists seem to think that you are operating at a level of someone who is legally intoxicated. This includes sound judgement in the self assessment of whether you are fit to fly or not. Human performance should be the strongest link in the chain not the weakest in any risk assessment model.

 

[Browntothebone]

You are rolling the dice on a 600 RVR Take Off with the Flight Director deferred; you are rolling the dice when you your approach to a mins airport rolling the dice are something we do in this business all the time. We evaluate the risk, and compensate. My views are not management, there are from my 40 years and 13,000 hours as a flight crewmember. Management does not play a part in this, this is a crew’s response. BTW the anything that adds to the cost of the doing business, reduces the amount avaialbe to pay pilots. What would the vote be, "We are going to hire another 14 pilots to ensure you never fly more than 12 hours a day, but everyone takes a 25% pay cut?"

What the regional pilots are hoping for is the government to mandate hiring the additional pilots and getting a 25% pay RAISE.

 

[pilotyip]

Still did not address the int'l issue

Right, well when you have been awake for 17 hours the scientists seem to think that you are operating at a level of someone who is legally intoxicated. This includes sound judgement in the self assessment of whether you are fit to fly or not. Human performance should be the strongest link in the chain not the weakest in any risk assessment model.

What about the int'l flying. How are you going to limit that? RON's at Kev? Sleeping in the cockpit is used by others countries to conbat fatique. FAA did study in the late 80's early 90's and recommend controlled sleeping in the cockpit was the best way to combat fatigue. They studied the occurrence of micro naps, these are naps that you have no control over, and you nod off. On crews studied who did not have controlled sleeping in the cockpit there were 147 occurrences of micro nap, a number of them during the approach phase. On the crews at foreign airlines that allowed sleeping in the cockpit, there were no occurrences of micro naps during the approach phase. The FAA recommended that controlled napping in the cockpit be adopted as US policy, however Gov’t officials felt that official recognition of sleeping on the job was un-American. Sorry of a mirco-nap. When you fly shifting schedules, you have to plan sleeping otherwise it is uncontrollable. Having one guy rest his eyes for 20 minutes, when other one knows it is going on does wonders for your ability to make that tight approach at the end of the night. However when everyone in the cockpit is asleep, that is scary. We used to fly these night and day patrols around Vietnam, terrible schedule, 12 hr flights, fly a day flight 12 hours off fly a night flight, 24 hrs off fly a day flight. 10 days in a row. One night off the south end of the country, at 0300, nothing is going on, no contacts, no chatter on the intercom, I am fighting off sleep and loosing, a mirco-nap hits and I nod off. I wake up, you do not know if it has been 30 seconds or 30 minutes, we are on the autopilot' at 1,500’, #1 engine in the bag to save fuel, and all 10 of the crew is asleep. Talk about being wide-awake, Where the are we? Now how do you wake up the PPC without letting him know you nodded off also? The F/E was also in the bag. So I called for "Coffee around for my friends" The point is the worse thing about sleeping in the cockpit is letting it sneak up on you, You know it might happen, plan on when it is going to happen, control it.

 

[pilotyip]

Fewer job woulds be the answer

What the regional pilots are hoping for is the government to mandate hiring the additional pilots and getting a 25% pay RAISE.

That is part of the FI Fantasy, that the cost of tickets can rise without effecting tickets sold. It can be done under re-reg with the loss of jobs, good for some senior guys, bad for most junior guys.